America First, Last and Always!

Today is the deadline for the FBI and the Department of Justice, DOJ, to provide Congress with a batch of Trump-Russia probe documents. Many of these were originally issued subpoenas for back last summer. In particular, Rep. David Nunes, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, wants documents related to the infamous dossier composed by former MI6 agent, Christopher Steele. Many suspect that this dossier, provided by Fusion GPS and paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC, may have been used by the FBI and DOJ to obtain a FISA court warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. If so, there will be a lot of explaining to do!

Recently, the New York Times ran a story claiming that a drunken conversation at a London UK pub between part-time Trump campaign coffee boy, George Papadopolous, and an official from Australia, may have been the trigger for the FISA warrant. The Times claims that according to anonymous sources, the drunken Papadopolous told the Aussie back in May, 2016 that Russia ′had the goods′ on Hillary Clinton. Sometime in July, 2016, the Australians informed the FBI about this pub chat. That it was this that caused the FBI to seek surveillance on the Trump campaign and transition team.

However, this story this very unlikely. Talk about hearsay, would a FISA court judge actually issue a warrant to spy on a presidential candidate and his campaign based on some drunken chit-chat by a low-level flunky? The fly-in-the-buttermilk is the fact that the FBI and DOJ had tried to obtain the surveillance warrant before and failed. They did not get one until October, which is shortly after the Steele dossier came into play. So, my instinct tells me that while the FBI and DOJ may have tried to get a FISA warrant based on the drunken chatter from George Papadoplous, but that request was the one which was turned down. A rare event as only a handful of such requests are turned down by the FISA courts in the past decade.

No, it makes more sense that a FISA judge issued the warrant based on the Steele dossier, since, at the very least, it is something semi-tangible. Not just hearsay from an British pub. The deadline today could force the FBI and DOJ to come clean and provide Congress with its records of how this whole Russia-Trump probe got started. The effect of which would be like pulling a bandage off of a nasty, unhealed wound, exposing the serious flaws and biases at play.

The key questions which remained unanswered are the following. Did the FBI and DOJ use the Steele document to get the FISA warrant? Did the FBI pay Steele? Did the FBI and DOJ know that the dossier was a product of Fusion GPS, which was contracted by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC? Just how much vetting was done on the dossier? Whom in the FBI and DOJ signed off on using the dossier as a credible source?

When we learn the answers to these questions, then the origins of the whole Trump-Russia probe will be clear and obvious. From what we currently know from text messages, emails and inspector general reports, the answers will not be very good ones for many high-ranking officials in both the FBI and DOJ. Not to mention former officials like James Comey and Loretta Lynch. The ′blame-chain′ may even extend higher into the Barack Obama White House to Ben Rhodes, Valerie Jarrett and Obama, himself. Let us not also forget Hillary Clinton and her campaign staffers and contractors. Oh yes, also many current and former officials from the State Department, CIA, NSA, DIA, etc. You know, the whole ′Deep State′ swamp.

No, it doesn′t look good for the ′Deep State′ and the rest of this motley bunch of corrupt officials and politicians. For more on this, just read my ′companion story′ today about Huma Abedin and her latest email trouble. A whole lot went wrong with how our government is supposed to function during the Obama years, especially during 2015 and 2016. If I were a betting man, I would bet that the FBI and DOJ will continue to stonewall Congress and not release the documents they want. Fortunately for us, we have groups like Judicial Watch hard at work getting to the truth!

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